City violated rights with WTO arrests, jury finds

By COLIN MCDONALD, P-I REPORTER

Published 10:00 pm, Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Plaintiffs' lawyer Michael Withey phones results of the verdict to the news media Tuesday as client Kenneth Hankin looks on at the federal courthouse in Seattle. A jury decided that the arrests of 147 people in the WTO protests didn't violate free-speech rights but did breach their right to be free of improper search and seizure.
Photo: Karen Ducey/Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Plaintiffs' lawyer Michael Withey phones results of the verdict to...

With Assistant Police Chief Jim Pugel watching Tuesday, Ted Buck, a lawyer representing the city of Seattle, speaks with the media. Pugel was a police captain during the protests in December 1999.
Photo: Karen Ducey/Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Free-speech rights weren't violated, but the blanket arrest of 147 people seven years ago in downtown Seattle during the World Trade Organization tumult was still unconstitutional -- and the city should be held liable, a federal jury decided Tuesday.

Both sides declared victory after the mixed verdict was announced in U.S. District Court.

"The key point, the lesson learned, is you cannot arrest peaceful protesters here in Seattle or anywhere else in the country," said Kenneth Hankin, a Boeing Co. worker and lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit.

The five-man, five-woman jury deliberated for three days. The decision moves the lawsuit to a damages phase -- and a possible multimillion-dollar award against the city.

Lawyers for the city immediately declared their intention to ask a federal appeals court to dismiss the case, arguing that the split verdict shows that jurors were confused by their instructions.

The verdict proves that police making the mass arrests weren't biased against WTO protesters, one of the city's attorneys, Ted Buck, said afterward.

"The important part is that this is still a great city to protest in," said Assistant Police Chief Jim Pugel, who was the captain in charge of officers during the December 1999 WTO meeting.

The central question of the three-week trial was whether the city had a policy to specifically arrest WTO protesters because of their views -- not because they were violating a limited curfew imposed by the city.

In a pretrial ruling, Judge Marsha Pechman held that the arrests were illegal because they were made without probable cause. The officers didn't give a warning to clear Westlake Park first, didn't tell the demonstrators why they were being handcuffed and used a photocopied arrest report for all.

Lawyers for the protesters had to convince jurors that the city had a policy targeting the protesters for their anti-WTO views or that city higher-ups approved the illegal arrests -- a violation of the Fourth Amendment's protection against improper search and seizure.

"The jury found our clients were falsely arrested, and the city is liable for it," lawyer Michael Withey said.

But former police Chief Norm Stamper, who testified during the trial, said he was satisfied with one message sent by the verdict.

"We made the arrests based on violation of the order, not people's beliefs about the WTO," Stamper wrote in an e-mail Tuesday. "I'm pleased that, despite the chaos and confusion of that moment seven years ago, the jury agreed that we did not violate the plaintiffs' First Amendment rights."

In his closing argument last week, Buck argued that it was absurd to think the city of Seattle could be capable of coming up with such a bias in the middle of protests that engulfed the city.

"I don't want to displease my client," Buck told the jury, "but this is a city that took three years to decide what kind of toilets to put downtown."

After the verdict, he said the joke was meant to show that a city such as Seattle simply cannot move that fast. The decision to make the mass arrest was the result of a police force that had lost control of a swarm of 50,000 protesters -- not city officials with an ax to grind.

Withey argued that during moments of chaos, such as the WTO protests, constitutional rights are most at risk of being infringed -- and that's when they need the strongest advocate.

Hankin agreed Tuesday.

"I'm the kind of person who is going to have their voice heard no matter what," he said. "I just don't want to go to jail for it."

The city of Seattle already has paid $800,000 to settle more than a dozen lawsuits and claims.

Because of the number of people named in the class-action suit, the city could end up having to pay several million more.

Withey said he isn't prepared to speculate on what would be a fair amount for the city to pay.